Tag: fashion

Tiny Tuesday!

If your memory is even better than my blog’s search function, you may remember that back in August of 2012, Lindsey brought her late Aunt Gwen’s sewing case to a craft night. She gave me carte blanche to go through it and take things I might need for all the sewing I was doing then, and I took some of the sewing notions and especially several spools of thread which I’ve used a lot and still have a supply of.

Last fall, when The Brides packed up their home so extensive remodeling could be done, they did a lot of purging, and Lindsey asked if I would like to have Aunt Gwen’s sewing case for keeps. OF COURSE I WOULD. I may have never met Aunt Gwen, but I feel a connection to her, and she was part of a lot of the doll fashion I made back then for Runway Monday.

I got to explore the sewing case again.

There was something new/different in it: this little black zippered case.

When I opened it, I found these beautifully crafted Marks cutting tools. SO NICE.

Please note the silver bullet, which is a needles case, and the thimble, both of which tuck snugly into their own places.

Such tiny surprises, and I hope that when I sew again, using these scissors, I can fashion something as beautifully crafted.

Thanks, Lindsey! <3

Button Sunday

This is true, but it implies that I mostly wear pajamas all day, every day, and that is not true. I may take one day a week as a “pajama day,” because from the time I get up, I’m cleaning or doing other busy work, then I fix brunch and start working. By the time I take a shower late afternoon/early evening, there’s zero chance I’m going anywhere, so I just put on clean sleepwear (could be pajamas, flannel nightshirts, nightgowns, pajama pants with shirts of one kind or another–it’s always a surprise to me, too).

Most stay-home days, I shower early and dress because I never know who or what might show up at my door: deliveries for any of us; exterminator; a lost soul at the wrong house; water guy; something of Debby’s requiring a signature. It stuns me how often the doorbell rings and creates utter havoc among the BatPack. Most days, I feel more productive and “take-charge” if I’m dressed when I sit down to pay bills, read email, journal, and create (writing or painting).

Today, I decided to take a little drive to be sure about an address where I’m taking Debby tomorrow. It’s close to home, in a place I’m familiar with, but not that particular building. I had long since showered and dressed, and I decided since I wasn’t leaving my car, it would be okay to keep my house-shoes on. See said house-shoes:

Except the location was next to one of the hardware stores we use, and there were a couple of cleaning things I need that aren’t in the grocery store. They are likely at Target and Walmart, but I was right next to this store, so I stared down at my house-shoes. I thought about all the times in the old ‘hood when Tim and I used to take writing breaks to go to 24-hour Walgreens and 24-hour Kroger in the middle of the night where people knew us and didn’t care what either of us might be wearing. We were all buddies there.

I bopped inside this store in my house-shoes, found the cleaning supplies I needed, and noticed they’ve put out patio furniture again (it’s coastal Texas; they’re saying winter is possibly over). Tom bought a chair last year he wanted to try out to see if we liked. We did, but when he next went back, all the outdoor furniture was put away.

At this place, I shot a phone photo of similar chairs the hardware store had in stock and texted him. He opted, when HE did errands, to check out last year’s store. They had chairs identical to the one we own back in stock, so now, we have a set of four. All because I threw my standards to the wind and shopped in my house-shoes.

Here’s what I’ve been listening to while I wrote–fully dressed in real clothes–the last couple of days.


Everlast, Eat at Whitey’s and Whitey Ford Sings the Blues; Michael Feinstein, Isn’t It Romantic, part of a package at a fundraiser; Fischerelle, Steel Innuendoes, CD likely a gift from Tom’s middle sister of a Birmingham, AL-based band; Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Ella and Louis Sing Gershwin, highly recommend; Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac, Rumors, Tusk, and Mirage.


Happy Full Moon! A good time to set your intentions for the month, especially if there are things you want to release. If it doesn’t serve you, let that shit go!

Crafty follow-up


A couple of projects from the past week. I found a box of wooden shiplap ornaments and painted a few to give away. Didn’t photograph them all, but here are four I remembered to shoot. Always feels good to paint again.

This little doll who I shared on this week’s Tiny Tuesday is Mattel’s 1994 Tommy, little brother of Ken. I bought him from eBay for a final Runway Monday collection in 2010. He had no clothes, but I made him this ring bearer outfit for Top Model Summer’s wedding. He’s so small that I literally sewed him into the outfit, which meant I had to cut it off of him. He’s had no clothes since. I’m trying to create patterns because if it’s challenging to sew for 11- and 12-inch dolls, it’s REALLY a pain for a doll only a bowl haircut over four inches.


Here’s a first attempt using felt for overalls so I wouldn’t have to sew hems, just put pattern pieces together and add a snap for the straps in the back. The pattern definitely needs to be modified for a better fit, but at least he has his own little outfit now.

Throwback Thursday

Follow-up on yesterday’s post. Here’s the new haircut (so much better bangs!), and I pulled out one of my beautiful scarves, this one knitted by Lisa in Iowa, to do today’s selfie.

I wanted to compare it to my first scarf selfie from 2007, with my actual hair color before I went blonde in 2016 and then fully gray and white in 2021–every last bit of hair color or bleach gone. I haven’t regretted it for even a moment.

Surrendering to the scarf


Today I took a selfie to post for a couple of reasons. The first: If all goes as planned, tomorrow my hair will FINALLY again be a few inches shorter and the mess I’ve made of my bangs over the last eight months will be corrected.

The second: I’m finally giving in to the idea of using a scarf on days like this. I have beautiful knitted/crocheted scarves that were gifts of friends, and they’re great when winter hits for its short season in Houston. Those scarves are too thick and heavy for the brisk days of fall. I like this shirt–it’s an old one that’s the ideal weight for this weather and has the three-quarter-length sleeves that I prefer. The V-neck offers me little relief from cold air, however, so today I added a scarf. It worked just as I hoped. Is wearing a scarf an old lady thing? That’s fine. I am an old lady.

Somehow, all of this brought me full circle to a post that’s been percolating in my brain provoked by a quote I recently read about kindness. Some of it is based on a thought I had yesterday in reaction to a news story: It’s like six years of an abusive relationship has suddenly spun itself into an infinite loop. It was the “six years” that startled me. It’s the number of years–1980 to 1986–that I was in two successive (albeit VERY different kinds of) abusive relationships.


The writer part of me wishes for a way to weave this all together. The private part of me is not inclined to do so.

Is the scarf protecting my throat or warming my voice? Maybe both? Bags to unpack for days… Like the ones under my tired eyes.

ETA: This post has been edited because I erred in what I remembered about a quote I read, and that led to a discussion in comments based on erroneous information, so that comment thread is now unpublished, as well.

A touch of normalcy

My cleanup of the blog is complete, and now we (which means, mostly Tom, the tech savvy person at Houndstooth Hall) are working with a couple of companies’ technical support to resolve various issues before I take the site live again.

It’s a profound relief not to be going through hundreds of posts a day, trying to clean them up. Instead, I’ve given time to leisure activities I enjoy. I started this book yesterday. Lady of Bones is the 24th in Carolyn Haines’s Sarah Booth Delaney series, and I finished it today. Set in and around New Orleans, it’s got a bit of everything, and it was nice to catch up with the Zinnia crew again.

I’ve listened to some of my recently purchased CDs while cleaning house, cooking, and enjoying time with my dogs. Music, as the Beach Boys sing, is in my soul.

Also, I finally, finally have returned to the Neverending Saga. One of the things I discovered as I reread my entire blog was how long these characters were percolating in my brain again before I took the plunge and decided to revise and rewrite those old manuscripts in 2019. In every way, I realized that I’ve reached the phase of peace and resolution I wanted. I’m writing for me. It doesn’t matter that others have not and may not ever read what I’m writing. It doesn’t matter that people used what I’m writing to project their own challenges or miseries onto me or my work. I’ll tell the stories. I’ll tell them in ways that honor my characters and who they were created to be. That’s all I can do.

It’s nice to be with them again after more than three weeks of being denied that joy.

Here are a couple of characters who help me celebrate friendship. The dress on the left is one I made way back when, and on the right, from Mattel’s 1962 black and white floral Fashion Pak, are this blouse and skirt and included another skirt and a romper. The entire set is almost certainly from Lynne’s collection.

Button Sunday


This button from my personal collection I first shared on here in 2012. I don’t know where I got it.

I might have said before that though “Dr. Seuss” began publishing children’s books in my lifetime, I never read any of them that I recall until I was a young teenager and Lynne introduced me to them. It’s funny, because The Cat in the Hat was written by Theodor Seuss Geisel at the request of a publisher after there was public grumbling about how the Dick and Jane books children were reading in school didn’t encourage them to want to keep reading more books.

I was one of those children who read Dick and Jane books in school even after the Dr. Seuss books appeared, and while maybe they weren’t riveting characters or stories, I was thrilled any time I could read anything. Everyone in my family read, and it was frustrating for me that I couldn’t. I think I didn’t realize that everyone has to learn to read. I wanted to be able to do what David (eight years older) and Debby (five years older) did.


In 2013, I first posted about this mug gifted with hot chocolate from Debby and commented on how it made me think of The Cat in the Hat. It still does, but the other day when I pulled it down, it also made me think of Eddie Van Halen backstage at a 1981 concert (especially because of the green shoes).


But hey, Elton John sported the look in 1972, which predated my own socks, seen below, hanging behind our Charlie Brown tree in the Tuscaloosa house on Twelfth Avenue when I was a college sophomore.

Not to be overlooked are these sock dresses I made for my Top Models.

Our lives are full of recurring themes and patterns, and apparently in my case, the appeal of red and white stripes.